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THE RELATION 

OF PSYCHOLOGY 

JO PHILOSOPHY, 



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THE RELATION 

OF 

Experimental Psychology 

TO 

PHILOSOPHY. 



LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
ROYAL BELGIAN ACADEMY 



BY 

Mgr. desire merger, 

Professor of Philosophy at Louvain, and Director of the 
Institut Sufdrieur de Philosophic 



TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY 

Rev. EDMUND J. WIRTH, Ph.D., D.D., 

Professor at St. Bernard' 's Seminary, 
. Rochester, N. Y. 



New York, Cincinnati, ChicAg6: ' ' 
BENZIGER BROTHERS, 

Printers to the Holy Apostolic See, 
1902. 






Btbfl ©bstat 



OWEN McGUIRE, Ph.D., D.D., 

Censor Deputatus. 



Umprfmatur, 



^JNO. M. FARLEY, 

Administrator of New York, 



New York, July i, 1902. 



■■"library of] 
cowgress, 

•: :J902 



- <£?OCa No, 

copy g. 



Copyright, 1902, by Benzig # er Brothers. 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 



Experimental Psychology, the 

youngest of the natural sciences, is a 

product of our own days. In a few 

years it has grown to such an extent 

as to leave no doubt that it has come 

to stay, and is not merely a fad of the 

passing hour that can be ridiculed out 

of existence. This remarkable growth 

is especially apparent in our own 

country. Since the establishment of 

the first psychological laboratory by 

Stanley Hall at the Johns Hopkins 

University in 1881 these laboratories 

have multiplied so rapidly that there 

is now no university or academy of 

higher studies in the country that does 
3 



4 Translators Preface. 

not boast of a psychological laboratory, 
and consequently we number more such 
laboratories in America than there are in 
the rest of the world put together. In 
view of this fact the question presents 
itself to Catholic philosophers, and for 
that matter to all students of philoso- 
phy, What are we to think of this new 
science? Is it necessarily material- 
istic in its methods and tendencies ? 
Can it be brought into harmony with a 
spiritualistic philosophy ? This ques- 
tion is imperative ; it can no longer be 
ignored. To furnish the student of 
philosophy with an answer to this 
pressing question was the purpose of 
the author of the discourse before us. 
The position taken needs no defence. 
The words of the author are clear, and 
contain their own justification. 
As the author is known in America 



Translator's Preface. 5 

only through his French works, it may 
not be amiss to say a few words con- 
cerning him and his method in philos- 
ophy. Soon after our Holy Father 
Leo XIII. had exhorted the Catholic 
world by his memorable encyclical 
" (Eterni Patris" of August 4, 1879, 
to return to the sound principles of 
St. Thomas in philosophy, he turned 
his eyes to the old university of Lou- 
vain and desired that a chair of Tho- 
mistic philosophy be erected there.* 
This chair was accordingly founded 
and entrusted to Mgr. Desire Mercier, 
and classes were opened in October, 
1882. The success with which Mgr. 
Mercier expounded the doctrine of St. 
Thomas induced the Holy Father to en- 
large his scheme. He asked the bishops 

* Letter of Pope Leo XIII. to Cardinal Dechamps, 
Dec. 25, 1880. 



6 Translator's Preface. 

of Belgium to erect an institute after 
the model of the Roman schools for the 
more thorough teaching of Thomistic 
philosophy.* The bishops carrying 
out the wish of His Holiness founded 
such an institute and placed it in 
charge of Mgr. Mercier. At the same 
time they founded the Seminaire Leon 
XIII., where the ecclesiastical students 
that follow the course of the institute 
might receive an ecclesiastical training 
under the guidance of Mgr. Mercier. 
It was now that the ardent lover of 
philosophy saw himself enabled to 
carry out a work which had been the 
subject of his thoughts and meditations 
for years. He recognized the great 
harm done by a false philosophy, and 
believed firmly that the cure was to be 

* Letter of Pope Leo XIII. to Cardinal Goossens^ 
July 15, 1888. 



Translator's Preface. 7 

sought in a return to St. Thomas, the 
great doctor of the Middle Age. He 
saw too that the return which was be- 
ing made had for some reason or other 
very little influence upon the world; 
men not belonging to the school treated 
it as non-existing. The principal reason 
for this he recognized to be the preju- 
dice that every Catholic philosopher 
was in every case nothing but an apolo- 
gist for his Credo. To remedy this he 
decided that it was necessary to create 
a Thomism that would be more than a 
mere "ancilla S. Theologise" ; a philos- 
ophy for philosophy's sake ; one that 
could go out and meet philosophers on 
their own ground ; one that was able to 
live in the atmosphere of our age, and 
did not need to be galvanized into life 
continually by authority. This was his 
first thesis. 



8 Translator's Preface. 

Just as philosophy without being in- 
different to theology was to be studied 
for its own sake, so also science. The 
atmosphere of our age is preeminently 
a scientific one, and we must either ac- 
cept the conditions of life or refuse to 
live. Speculation can have no value if 
not based on facts, and these are fur- 
nished by scientific investigation. The 
data of science, then, cannot be neg- 
lected in philosophy, if it proposes to 
live and influence the world. His sec- 
ond thesis, therefore, was to study the 
sciences and to harmonize their results 
with the principles of sound philosophy. 

How well Mgr. Mercier has carried 
out his programme will be apparent to 
any one who will take the trouble to ac- 
quaint himself with the work of the in- 
stitute. He will find there a complete 
course of the sciences, with laboratories 



Translator's Preface. 9 

and apparatus such, as no other Catholic 
college can show in connection with a 
philosophical course.* He will find 
that no question of philosophy is 
treated without an ample explanation 
of its relation to questions of science. 
The results of scientific research are 
used continually to furnish a basis for 
speculation and to confirm the conclu- 
sions of reason. It is principally on 
this account that Mgr. Mercier has 
been one of the few Catholic philos- 
ophers that have been able to break 
the conspiracy of silence on the part 
of non-Catholic philosophers against 
Thomism. We need only allude to the 

* M. Binet in the Annee Psychologique says : "For 
the course of M. Thiery (professor of Experimental 
Psychology at the Institute) there is a laboratory 
and complete equipment for physiological psychol- 
ogy such as does not exist at present in all France." 
Since this was written in 1896 one has been founded 
at the Sorbonne after the model of that at Louvain. 



10 Translator's Preface. 

articles on !N~eo-Thomism that have ap- 
peared in the Revue PMlosophique, 
the Annee Psychologique, the Kant- 
studien, the Zeitschrift fur PsycTio- 
logie und Physiologie der Sinnesor- 
gane, the Revista Critica of Morselli, 
the Revista Filosoftca. 

As additional evidence of this we 
may also mention the invitation which 
has been extended to him by the Brit- 
ish Government to appear before the 
4 ' Royal Commission on University Edu- 
cation in Ireland 55 to offer suggestions 
relative to the philosophical course in 
the proposed University of Ireland. 

This then is the purpose Mgr. Mer- 
cier has set to himself in his life's 
work, and this some of the success 
already attained. May the good work 
prosper. 

Edmund J. Wirth. 



THE RELATION OF EXPERIMENTAL PSY- 
CHOLOGY TO PHILOSOPHY. 



Ladies and Gentlemen: 

The subject of the lecture which I 
have the honor to deliver before you is 
"The Relation of Experimental Psy- 
chology to Philosophy." 

If a philosopher had pronounced the 
word Experimental Psychology in 1820 
or 1850, he would have astonished, not 
to say scandalized, every one. ' ' What, ' ' 
they would have exclaimed, "experi- 
ment on the soul ! Is not the soul by its 
very definition invisible and inaccessible 

to our senses, and hence to experiment ? 
11 



12 The Relation of 

Do not the operations of the soul ema- 
nate from a principle that is spiritual in 
its nature, and therefore independent ? 
Are not its acts for this reason above 
material laws and measurements ? But 
if this be the case, how can there be an 
experimental science of the soul ; since 
without laws it would not be a science, 
and without processes of measurement 
not experimental ? " 

The spiritualistic philosophers of the 
first half of the nineteenth century — 
Cousin, Jouffroy, Gamier — in conform- 
ity with Des Cartes, taught that the soul 
had but one means of knowing itself, 
and that this was to contemplate itself 
by means of the eye of inner conscious- 
ness. The task of the psychologist ac- 
cording to them was limited to the ana- 
lyzing, describing, and arranging of 
one's inner acts in distinct categories 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. 13 

under the various faculties that elicited 
these acts. This comprised all the 
psychologist was supposed to do. 






Inner consciousness, made by these 
philosophers the sole means of the soul's 
information, seems at first sight a very 
unsafe one. Has it not been abused 
continually? Does not the very fact 
that you submit a mental state to the 
scrutiny of consciousness modify more 
or less profoundly the nature of the 
state which is to be examined ; so that 
consciousness itself will falsify the re- 
sults of its analysis ? Auguste Comte 
has gone so far as to declare interior 
observation physically impossible. " It 
is obvious," he writes, " that by an in- 
vincible necessity the human spirit can 
observe directly all phenomena except 
its own. We understand that a man 



14 The Relation of 

can observe himself as a moral agent, 
because in that case lie can watch him- 
self under the action of the passions 
which animate him, precisely because 
the organs that are the seat of these 
passions are distinct from those that 
are destined for the functions of obser- 
vation. . . . But there is a manifest im- 
possibility to observe the intellectual 
phenomena whilst they are being pro- 
duced. The individual thinking cannot 
divide himself in two, so that one-half 
should think and the other watch the 
process. Since the organ observing and 
the one to be observed are identical, 
there can be no self-observation. This 
so-called psychological method, there- 
fore, is radically wrong in principle."* 
Des Cartes had divided the objects of 
human knowledge into two vast classes: 

*Cours de philosophie positive, liere le9on. 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. 15 

the one comprising matter, extended, 
divisible, subject to mechanical laws, 
and consequently knowable by ex- 
ternal observation; the other, simple 
beings, spiritual, endowed with thought, 
and knowable by internal observation 
only. This division of human knowl- 
edge was accepted more or less for- 
mally by the majority of thinkers down 
to the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. 

Under the influence of Gilbert (1540- 
1603), Galileo (1564-1642), Pascal (1623- 
1662), Huyghens (1629-1695), Newton 
(1642-1727), Fresnel (1788-1827), Am- 
pere (1775-1836), Faraday (1791-1867), 
and many other illustrious men the 
natural sciences had made marvellous 
progress. This was principally due to 
the development of the experimental 
method, at the same time inductive 



16 The Relation of 

and mathematical. In 1842 Mayer dis- 
covered the mechanical equivalent of 
heat. It was found that a law of cor- 
relation ruled the forces of nature. 
No force is produced without the loss of 
another ; none disappears without giving 
place to another. The idea of consider- 
ing all natural forces merely as different 
forms of mechanical energy and of ap- 
plying to them the law of the conserva- 
tion of energy thus gradually prevailed. 
Kepler had long before prepared the 
mechanical theory of the heavens; 
Newton wrote the first chapter; La- 
grange, Laplace, LeVerrier continued 
the work. Chemistry began to be con- 
sidered as made up of a relation of 
weights. The efforts of a great many 
chemists were directed towards tracing 
chemistry and mechanics to a common 
parentage. The discovery of the Abbe 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. 17 

Hauy gave Crystallography geometrical 
laws and promised to reform the science 
of Mineralogy. 

On the other hand, the relations of 
human Physiology to Chemistry and 
Physics became closer from day to day, 
so that the attempt made by Des Cartes 
in his Traite de Vhomme to give a 
mechanical explanation of the functions 
of organisms seemed no longer impossi- 
sible. At the same time Darwin pushed 
the biological sciences into new meth- 
ods. Henceforth organisms were no 
longer to be merely observed under the 
microscope, described according to their 
specific type, arranged in their order, 
class, and family; the laws of their 
origin was to be the important ques- 
tion. Schwann' s discoveries created the 
sciences of cellular biology and histol- 
ogy. Embryology was being studied 



18 The Relation of 

and gave hopes of results. In a word, 
all the natural sciences had received a 
new impetus. 

Everywhere, then, scientific discover- 
ies, and at times even superficial hypoth- 
eses which seemed to be favored by 
discoveries, tended to develop the ex- 
perimental method in the study of the 
natural sciences. They made men sim- 
plify by analysis, give precision to their 
results by measurements, generalize by 
calculation. The relation between or- 
ganic kingdoms was substituted for 
simple description. The question arose 
naturally enough whether in this new 
movement psychology alone was to re- 
main stationary or whether it, too, was 
to adopt the new method. 

This was a critical moment for psy- 
chology. If it remained refractory 
to the general conditions of progress, 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. 19 

would it not virtually abdicate its 
claims of being a science ? On tlie other 
hand, could it in any way attach itself 
to physics and mechanics and submit, 
by any title whatever or in any degree, 
to the experimental method without 
becoming materialistic ? This dilemma 
has only too often been considered com- 
plete in circles not acquainted with the 
work of Experimental Psychology and 
the history of philosophy. We believe 
that this is not the case. Neither the 
work nor the method of Experimental 
Psychology are opposed to the princi- 
ples of spiritualistic philosophy. We 
believe that they are not only in har- 
mony with each other, but that philos- 
ophy will even receive valuable assist- 
ance from the new science. 



20 The Relation of 

I. 

In the first transports of joy at the 
birth of the new science those that had 
taken it upon themselves to popularize 
it misrepresented its purpose and im- 
portance. They took delight in styling 
it the New Psychology, in order to 
oppose it to the old or metaphysical 
psychology. The latter, they claimed, 
had exhausted itself in foolish discus- 
sions on the soul and its faculties, and 
that the time had come to create a 
psychology that would be scientific. 

These sentiments were expressed es- 
pecially by M. Bibot in his two well- 
known works, LapsycJiologie anglaise 
contemporaine and La psychologie 
allemande contemporaine. The conse- 
quence of this was that works on Ex- 
perimental Psychology were often re- 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. 21 

ceived by some with satisfaction and by 
others with mistrust, for no other reason 
than that it was considered incompat- 
ible with spiritualistic philosophy. 

The object of Experimental Psychol- 
ogy is mental states, their relation to 
one another, and the laws of their devel- 
opment.* 



* The research of Experimental Psychology has to- 
day taken considerable proportions. Since Wundt 
founded his first laboratory of Psychophysics in 
1878, a number of learned men, trained for the 
most part in his school, have established similar 
centres of study in Germany, Denmark, Italy, Switz- 
erland, Belgium, France, Russia, Japan, and partic- 
ularly in the United States. It is in the United 
States that the greatest interest in the new science 
is taken. Wundt, Ziehen, Kuelpe, Ebbinghaus in 
Germany, Hoeffding in Copenhagen, Sergi in Italy, 
Sully in England, Ladd, James, Baldwin, Dewey, 
Titchener, and Scripture in America, have published 
the results of psychophysical experiments. Several 
reviews and a number of special works have been 
published and are still publishing, notably Philo- 
8ophische Studicn (Leipzig), Beitraege zur experiment 
tellen Psychologic (Freiburg i. B.), Zeitschrift fur 
Psychologic und Physiologic der Sinnesorgane (Leip» 



22 The Relation of 

Since, then, psychology treats of 
mental states in themselves, it must 
describe their quality, quantity, tonal- 
ity, and dynamogeny. 

The study of the quantity of mental 
states places them immediately in rela- 
tion to the physical activities that pre- 
cede and accompany the sensation. It 
is here that materialistic prejudices find 
their principal field. Materialists have 



zig), The Psychological Review (New York), L'Annee 
psychologique (Paris). Finally four congresses have 
been held, the fourth taking place at Paris in 1900. 
The purpose of these researches is vast, and we 
cannot undertake to point out their numerous appli- 
cations. However, in a general way we may say 
that it is twofold : first, the description of conscious 
states, simple or complex, in the order of cognition 
or emotion ; secondly, the conditions and the laws of 
their combination and dissociation. The interpreta- 
tion given to the results of the first order will de- 
termine that of the second. If the first class does 
not favor the materialistic hypothesis, then the sec- 
ond, which is founded on the first, can never sup- 
port it. 



Eocperimental Psychology to Philosophy. 23 

tried to turn the result of the experi- 
ments made by Weber on the quantity 
of sensation, as interpreted and erected 
into a law by Fechner, against spirit- 
ualistic philosophy. In like manner 
they treated the known fact that 
psychic acts take time. Let us examine 
these facts a little more closely. 






The general result of Weber's exper- 
iments was to confirm the fact ordina- 
rily perceived, that to every difference 
in the intensity of two given excitants 
or stimuli producing a sensation there 
does not always correspond a similar 
difference in the sensation itself. To 
this fact of every-day observation 
Weber gave scientific precision. He 
found that the quantity that must be 
added to an excitant in order to cause a 
perceptible difference in the sensation 



24 The Relation of 

is not an absolute one, but a relative 
one. Thus if the initial weight causing 
a sensation of pressure be 1, we must 
add ^ to make the difference percepti- 
ble ; if it be 2, we must add J of 2, or 
f ; if it be 3, we must add £ of 3, or 1, 
to cause a perceptible difference in the 
sensation of pressure. Hence the for- 
mula of Weber's law : The increase of 
the excitant necessary to produce a 
perceptible modification of the sensi- 
bility is in a constant relation to the 
quantity of the excitant to which it 
is added. Although the law of Weber, 
as psychologists themselves confess, has 
obtained only an approximate confirma- 
tion, we are still inclined to look upon 
it with confidence. As the methods of 
measurement are being perfected and 
the instruments are becoming more pre- 
cise, and hence the internal and exter- 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy, 25 

nal causes of error are being more and 
more eliminated, the deviations from the 
law diminish ; so that we may now re- 
gard the exceptions as proving the rule. 
Fechner and others after him have ex- 
pressed the law in a mathematical for- 
mula. Considering the smallest per- 
ceptible difference as equal to 1, the 
ordered series expressing the intensity 
of the sensations will be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 
. . . They therefore form an arithmetical 
progression, since the numbers differ, 
each from the preceding one, by the 
same quantity, i.e., by 1. On the other 
hand, the additional excitants capable 
of producing such a series of sensations 
form among themselves, according to 
the experiments of Weber, a geometri- 
cal progression. Hence the formula of 
Fechner : That a sensation may in- 
crease in arithmetical progression the 



26 The Relation of 

corresponding excitant must increase 
in geometrical progression. 

This mathematical interpretation of 
Weber' s law seems defective. It would 
make ns believe that the psychologist 
compares the gradual increase in the 
intensity of the sensation to a continu- 
ous quantity, divisible into equal parts 
commensurate with one another. To 
have an arithmetical progression all the 
terms of the series must increase by the 
same quantity, which is called the 
ratio of the progression. To arrange 
the minimal differences in arithmetical 
progression supposes that we know 
them to be equal. The mathematical 
formula of Fechner implies therefore 
that we perceive an equal minimal dif- 
ference between visual and auditive 
sensations. 

That this is impossible is clear. In 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. 27 

fact the experiments of Weber have 
no such results to show. The experi- 
menter asks the subject whether he has 
perceived a sensation differing from the 
one perceived before, but he does not 
and could not ask seriously how much 
it differed from the first. To be able to 
answer such a question the subject 
would have to have the consciousness 
that the first sensation A increased until 
it became the second sensation B. In 
that case he would perceive the same 
sensation A increasing, and not first 
the sensation A and afterwards the sen- 
sation B distinct from the sensation A. 
In this way we would no longer com- 
pare a series of sensations with one an- 
other, but a sensation with itself, and 
thus the object of the law itself would 
disappear. 
Weber's experiments warrant only 



28 The Relation of 

one conclusion, namely: The series of 
mental states perceived by conscious- 
ness is subordinate to physical excit- 
ants, which stand in a constant and 
definite relation to one another. Inter- 
preted in this manner his experiments 
show nothing that is not in perfect har- 
mony with the most rigorous spiritual- 
ism. Sensation is an act of the nervous 
organ ; it is therefore bound in its 
functions to the chemical and physical 
conditions of nervous activity. " The 
acts of sensitive life," says St. Thomas — 
and this conclusion of the great doctor 
is confirmed by the youngest science — 
" the acts of sensitive life do not belong 
to the soul alone nor to the body alone, 
but their subject is the combination of 
both." 

Sensations from their qualitative as 
well as from their quantitative point of 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. 29 

view, their association, the emotions 
that result in consequence of them, all 
are so many mental states whose sub- 
stratum is the nervous substance. If it 
is true that there are in man acts that do 
not result from nervous functions and 
are not reducible to them, it is equally 
true that there are none that are not pre- 
ceded and accompanied by functions of 
nerve-centres. So far as the applications 
of "Weber's law are verified, there is not 
and can never be an opposition between 
it and the spiritual philosophy of St. 
Thomas. 



* 
* * 



The same answer may be given to the 
objection which Schiff of Florence and 
Herzen of Lausanne have drawn from 
the duration of psychic acts. A super- 
ficial observation would lead us to be- 
lieve that the sensation of a flash of 



30 The Relation of 

lightning, of the pricking of the hand or 
foot, is perceived instantaneously. Still 
psychologists measure in hundredths of 
a second the exact time it takes from 
the moment the light strikes the retina 
until the sensation is perceived ; the 
time it takes from the irritation of the 
nerve-end until the pain is felt; the 
time required to judge between the 
excitation of the foot and the excita- 
tion of the hand. 

" Since all processes," says Herzen,* 
"that take time are motion, psychical 
activity is nothing but a form of mo- 
tion." Again, "Since the production 
of a psychical act takes time that is rel- 
atively very long and apparently inert 
between the cause at the point of de- 
parture and the realization of the act 
itself, we must conclude that the act 

* Le cerveau et Vactivite cerebrate, pp. 86, 94. 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. 31 

takes place in a substratum which is 
extended, resisting, and complex, just 
as other phenomena of nature do. 
Further, as every interval is employed 
in transmitting and eventually in modi- 
fying the external impulse in the in- 
ternal substratum, and since all trans- 
mission and modification is finally 
reduced to some form of motion, it 
follows that every psychical act con- 
sists in a transmission and modifica- 
tion of some external impulse, i.e., in 
some particular form of motion. Such 
is the generalization or inductive con- 
clusion which the numerous well-estab- 
lished facts relating to the duration of 
psychic acts warrant us to draw." 

The objection is always based on the 
same equivocation. Psychical acts, such 
as having a sensation, noticing it, local- 
izing it, distinguishing it from others, 



32 The Relation of 

are not operations of an immaterial soul, 
but of a living body. They imply func- 
tions of the nervous substance. These 
functions bring with them changes of 
various kinds, molecular motion, varia- 
tions of temperature, chemical combina- 
tions, and decompositions. These phe- 
nomena succeed one another, and this 
succession takes time. There is nothing 
in all this that cannot be brought into 
harmony with the most orthodox spir- 
itualism* 

To assert with Schiff and Herzen that 
these processes are nothing but motion 
is, to say the least, inexact. Such a 
proposition is unintelligible. If you 
assert that acts of seeing, hearing, judg- 
ing, willing, enjoying, are accompanied 
by motion the meaning is clear ; but if 
you affirm that such acts are motion the 
proposition becomes utterly unintelli- 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. 33 

gible. Sensation, differentiation of psy- 
chical acts, emotion, have no sense if 
they are only physical and not also 
psychical acts, modifications of my 
inner consciousness, subordinate if you 
will to external excitants, but not 
identical with them. 

An American psychophysicist, pro- 
fessor at Yale, openly takes the side of 
men like Lewes, Comte, Maudsley, and 
even Spencer, and pretends to express 
conscious states in terms of physics 
and physiology, identifying a physical 
excitation or a nervous shock with an 
act of consciousness, confounding phys- 
iology with psychology, and subordi- 
nating the latter to the former. " There 
can be nothing more absurd than that 
sort of language in the mouth of a psy- 
chologist," says Ladd,* " for the foun- 
* Ladd, Outlines of Descriptive Psychology, p. 60. 



34 The Relation of 

elation of all psychology is conscious- 
ness. The physical conditions of 
conscious life are the constant object of 
research. The moment the psycholo- 
gist studies psychical states scientifi- 
cally he does not know or care to 
know that there is such a thing as 
nervous substance or cerebral hemi- 
spheres." We might adopt the figura- 
tive language of Taine or of Fouillee 
and say that the conscious phenomena 
are the within and the nervous func- 
tions the without of the same act ; but 
it is evident that it is not indifferent 
for a phenomenon to have only a with- 
out as the falling of a stone, or to have 
also a within for the introspection of 
consciousness. 

We have thus far examined the re- 
lation between elementary mental states 
and their physical antecedents. This 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. 35 

may be summed up in the statement of 
the law of Weber. We have indicated the 
results of measurements applied to the 
duration of psychic acts in themselves. 
In all these experiments there is nothing 
that contradicts true philosophy. 

Psychical activity may further be 
considered in its relation to the effect 
produced on the muscles, the circu- 
lation of the blood, the temperature 
of the organism. These effects are 
measured by the dynamometer, the 
sphygmograph, the plethysmography 
and the thermometer. It is easy to 
show that from this point of view the 
data of consciousness and of experiment 
are in perfect harmony. There is not a 
single thought, were it even the con- 
ception of the law of universal gravita- 
tion, that is not accompanied by a 
cerebral image. This image is produced 



36 The Relation of 

by some sensitive nerve-centre, and 
consequently has some influence on 
motor-centers and on the muscles. 
Hence it varies the dilatation of the 
arteries, the volume of the bodily mem- 
bers, and in general the physical con- 
dition of the whole organism. 

Mental states are considered in the 
three relations of which we have spoken. 
What we have seen certainly does not 
justify the mistrust of spiritualistic 
philosophers, and their suspicions must 
be reduced to misinformation ; no more 
does it justify the pretensions of ma- 
terialistic popularizers of psychology. 
We shall, however, not be content with 
a negative defence. We assert that 
Experimental Psychology widens the 
road of progress for true philosophy 
and furnishes it with valuable infor- 
mation. 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. 37 

II. 

The first merit of Experimental Psy- 
chology is to have turned empirical 
psychology into a natural science, and 
to have multiplied, and treated with 
greater precision, the materials which 
will prepare a more comprehensive 
synthesis at some future time. Profes- 
sional psychologists have the laudable 
ambition of creating a new science, and 
are not — or at least are no longer — think- 
ing of substituting it for metaphysics. 
" Let us well understand this important 
point," writes Binet* " Experimental 
Psychology is independent of meta- 
physics, but it does not exclude meta- 
physics." Hoeffding f and others that 

* Binet, Introduction a la psychologie, p. 146. 
f Hoeffding, Outlines of Psychology , p. 14. London, 
MacMillan; 1891. 



38 The Relation of 

might be mentioned hold the same 
view. 

Like cellular biology, embryology, 
anatomy, cerebral physiology, and a 
host of other sciences which bygone 
centuries did not know and whose bril- 
liant future they could not foresee — like 
these, and more than these, Experimen- 
tal Psychology helps to give a scientific 
basis to the philosophy of man. By 
means of physical and physiological 
excitants it calls forth determined states 
of consciousness systematically ; sim- 
plifies them ; observes their genesis ; 
compares them from different points of 
view as regards their quality, intensity, 
duration, tonality, dynamogeny; it 
studies how they manifest themselves ; 
how they externalize themselves. How 
can any one be blind to the advantages 
this gives us in the study of mental 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy, 39 

facts. It gives us a new orientation, 
and favors as a necessary consequence 
the development of our metaphysical 
knowledge of the Ego. 

Secondly, Experimental Psychology 
has already contributed much to give 
precision to spiritualistic doctrine as 
regards the sciences, and will no doubt 
dispel many more doubts and equivo- 
cations. 

The scientific proof that there exist 
definite and regular relations of inter- 
dependence between our mental states 
and their excitant causes, between them 
and their effects, will do much to drive 
from the field of philosophy the sub- 
jective spiritualism of Des Cartes and 
Cousin. At the same time the prejudice 
that spiritualistic philosophy and the 
sciences are hostile to each other, that 
materialistic positivism is the sole 



40 The Relation of 

authorized representative of positive 
science will have to fall. 

Men of science too much accustomed 
to look only at the external, physical, 
or physiological aspect of man's activ- 
ity have learned in the school of Ex- 
perimental Psychology to turn their 
minds also to the internal psychical life. 
Those that for a long time accepted on 
faith the identification of conscious 
states with modes of motion now see 
that they have only been juggling with 
words. 

Psychologists to-day are agreed that 
internal observation must predominate 
and that external means, far from re- 
placing it, can only aid it. What, after 
all, is a fact of nature if the mind has 
not seized, examined, and assimilated 
it ? True, the information of conscious- 
ness is often precarious. For this rea- 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. 41 

son we do well to aid and control it by 
scientific apparatus. These apparatus 
can only aid, never supplant, introspec- 
tion. The telescope does not replace 
the eye, but extends its vision. Like- 
wise man whose study is man is aided 
in this by apparatus that increase his 
perceptive faculties tenfold. 

We see, then, that the hope of sub- 
stituting experiment for self-observa- 
tion on the plea that it falsified the re- 
sults is vain. We remember the state- 
ment of Comte that internal observation 
of mental acts is impossible. When 
Zeno by subtle argument denied the 
possibility of motion he was refuted by 
the simple process of walking. Just 
so we answer Comte that we know noth- 
ing that is not in some way within us. 
A thing to be known must in some way 
become present to our minds, as the 



42 The Relation of 

schoolmen said, " The object known is 
in the subject knowing." Comte said : 
"We understand that a man can ob- 
serve his passions for this anatomical 
reason, that the organs which are their 
seat are distinct from the organs of ob- 
servation ; but when we speak of intel- 
lectual phenomena, the organ observing 
and the organ observed are identical. 
How can there be any observation in 
this case?" 

In answer we might ask a few ques- 
tions : Can the passions be observed 
without becoming the object of our 
cognition? Is the organ of the inner 
sense the same as those of the external 
sense ? Do not all organs finally be- 
long to the same subject ? Is that sub- 
ject necessarily material ? Can the 
French positivist not see that he is beg- 
ging the question, since the point in 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. 43 

question is precisely the nature of the 
intellectual phenomena ? Say what he 
will, the court of last appeal is and re- 
mains consciousness. 






In addition to the general influence 
of orientation in psychology, the inves- 
tigations of Experimental Psychology 
have, by reason of the exact methods 
used, given philosophy some confirma- 
tions worthy of note. The first of these 
is the distinction between sense and 
intellect; the other bears on English 
Associationism. 

It is commonly observed that after a 
strong sensation our senses remain for 
a time incapable of perceiving weaker 
ones. After a strong odor we do not 
smell a light perfume ; after a strong 
detonation our ears are for a time deaf 
to sound ; a flash of lightning blinds us 



41 The Relation of 

so that we do not perceive the luminous 
surface of objects round about us. This 
accounts for the expressions of a deaf- 
ening sound, a blinding light, a dead- 
ening pain. By these expressions we 
simply mean that the sensation has been 
so strong as to leave our sensibility in- 
active. 

This wearing out of the organs by use 
has not escaped the penetrating minds 
of Aristotle * and his commentator St. 



* On 5'oi>x bfJLola ^ dirddeia rov dio-dyTiicov Kal rot 
vorjTucov (pavepbv iirl t&v aLcrdrjTrjpluv Kal ttjs di<rd'/)<rea)sP 
y\ p.kv yap &i<rdT]<ns otf dtivaral dicrddvea dai 4k tov <r<p6dpa 
di(T07}Tov, oiov \j/6<pov 4k t&v peydXwp ypbcfxav, 6v5 4k twv 
l<rxvp&v xpo^&Tuv Kal do-pup 6vd bpav, ovt 6<r/JLa<rdai • aXX* 
6 vovs 8rav ri vo^crrj <r(f>68pa porjrbv, ovx tjttop voe? ra 
virobeivTtpa , d\Xd /cat fxaXkov • rb fxkv yap di(rd7]TiKbv 6vk 
&vev <ru)fiaTos, b dt xw/OKrros. 

(The study of sensation and the organs of sense 
testifies that the sentient and intelligent subjects are 
not in the same conditions of inalterability. A 
vehement sensible excitation impedes the sensation ; 
violent noises disturb the hearing ; strong colors and 
odors hinder sight and smell. On the contrary, 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy, 45 

Thomas.* To this may be added an- 
other observation not less characteristic. 

when the intelligence perceives an excellent object 
it becomes not less apt, but rather better disposed, to 
understand inferior ones. The explanation of this 
is that the former is organic and the latter is not.) 
Aristotle, De Anima, L. III., ch. iv., p. 5. Ed. 
Didot. 

* Sens us . . . patitur per accidens in quantum 
organi proportio corrumpitur ab excellenti sensibili. 
Sed de intellect u hoc accidere non potest, cum organo 
careat ; unde nee per se nee per accidens corrumpi pos- 
sibile est. Et hoc est quod dicit, quod dissimilitudo 
passibilitatis sentivi et intellectivi manifesta est ex 
organo et sensu, quia sensus enicitur impotens ad 
sentiendum ex valde sensibili, sicut auditus non 
potest audire sonum propter hoc quod motus est ex 
magnis sonis, necque visus potest videre, necque 
olfactus odorare ex eo quod hi sensus moti sunt prius 
ex fortibus odoribus et coloribus corrumpentibus 
organum. Sed intellectus, quia non habet organum 
corporeum, quod corrumpi possit ob excellentiam 
objecti, cum intelligit aliquid valde intelligibile, non 
minus intelligit postea infima, sed magis : et idem 
accideret de sensu, si non haberet organum corpo- 
reum. Debilitatur tamen intellectus ex lsesione ali- 
cujus organi corporalis indirecte inquantum ad ejus 
operationem requiritur operatio sensus habentis or- 
ganum. Causa igitur diversitatis est quia sensitivum 
non est sine corpore sed intellectus est separatus. 
Ex his quae dicuntur, apparet falsitas opinionis 



46 The Relation of 

When the intellect has grasped objects 
of the highest order it is not rendered 
powerless to understand others more 
proportioned to it. The higher and 
more synthetic the thought has been, 
the more apt the intellect becomes to 
penetrate inferior ones. 

The activity of intellect and sense, 
therefore, depends on entirely different 
conditions. The statement of the rea- 
son for this difference will conclude the 
question. The reason given by Aris- 
totle and St. Thomas is that the sense 
depends on an organ and the intellect 
does not. The experiments of Weber 
prove nothing else. What is the physi- 
ological explanation of Weber's law? 
Why does an excitation that has been 

eorum qui dixerunt, quod intellectus est vis imagin- 
ativa, vel aliqua praeparatio iu natura bumana, con- 
sequens corporis coinplexioneru. (St. Thomas, in 
Lib. III., De Anima, Lect. VII.) 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy, 47 

sufficient in another case to make a 
perceptible difference not suffice now 
merely because the preceding excitation 
was more intense ? The natural expla- 
nation is that nerve activity is subject 
to the law of assimilation and disassimi- 
lation which rules all living beings. 
The excitation causes a decomposition 
in the nervous substance. This brings 
it about that the organ cannot react 
with the same intensity on a second 
excitation. It must first be repaired 
by assimilation. During the time of 
reparation it is less capable of reacting, 
and this in proportion to the intensity, 
and hence to the wear and tear, of the 
first sensation. 

The conditions of sensitive activity 
brought out by Weber after the obser- 
vations of Aristotle and St. Thomas 
have their foundation, therefore, in the 



48 The Relation of 

fact that the sensitive faculties are 
bound to a nervous organ. If intellect 
were also organic it is evident that it 
would be subject to the same condi- 
tions. Since it is not, it follows that it 
is not sensitivo-nervous. 

One might object that even intellec- 
tual activity cannot be prolonged with- 
out fatigue, and that hence it is sub- 
ject to the same conditions as sense. 
Intellectual work does cause fatigue. 
The fact cannot be doubted. However, 
we need only examine under what con- 
ditions this fatigue is caused in order 
to see that intellectual work is not the 
direct cause. Let us suppose that the 
work is really intellectual work, such 
as the contemplation of abstract truth. 
Let us suppose that this work is per- 
formed by some nerve-centre, as is the 
case in the work of the imagination and 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. 49 

of the senses. Would not the fatigue 
grow in that case in proportion to 
the height of the intellectual vision? 
Would not the contemplation of a very- 
great truth exhaust the intellect and 
leave it incapacitated for new acts for 
some time after ? 

Experience goes to show that this is 
not the case. The pleasure that dif- 
fuses itself throughout the soul, even at 
the time of intellectual labor, and which 
increases to amount to real enthusiasm 
in men of genius, shows that the up- 
ward flight of the soul in knowledge 
does not debilitate but strengthens it- 
Compare the labor of the novelist or 
poet in search of figures to put his 
thought in relief with the activity of 
the spirit contemplating truth. The 
play of the imagination tires them ; as 
images succeed images, as they become 



50 The Relation of 

more numerous and more intense, fa- 
tigue increases until it paralyzes the 
imagination. 

If intellectual and sensitivo-nervous 
activity were of the same nature they 
would follow the same law. If, on the 
contrary, fatigue of the brain is not 
caused directly by intellectual but by 
sensitive work, then the facts observed 
are explained. Thomistic philosophy 
recognizes that intellect requires the as- 
sistance of the imagination to abstract 
its own proper object from the image, 
and that it is aided by the image in all 
its subsequent acts. The imagination 
is bound to its cerebral organ and thus 
subject to the wear and reconstruction 
of all living tissues. In this way it is 
that intellectual work fatigues, and this 
in just that degree which corresponds 
to the exertion required to produce 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. 51 

the images necessary for intellectual 
work. 

For this reason we are conscious of 
an effort in forming abstract ideas from 
concrete objects. In the beginning the 
effort in scientific or metaphysical 
studies is often painful, so that we 
cannot continue for any length of time 
without interruption. When once in 
possession of the proper images as a 
substratum to the contemplation of 
abstract truth, then intellectual work 
becomes easy ; it invigorates the mind 
and fits it better for grasping other 
truths. Fatigue of the brain is thus 
explained by fatigue of the imagina- 
tion, and cannot be explained on any 
other hypothesis. The conclusion of 
Aristotle and St. Thomas is vindicated 
by modern psychology. The difference 
in the conditions for acts of the intel- 



52 The Relation of 

lect and of the senses points to a differ- 
ence in their nature. 

The researches of Experimental Psy- 
chology shake to their very foundations 
the claims of the English Association- 
istic school, and in this too it renders a 
great service to spiritualistic philoso- 
phy. English psychology had attempted 
a kind of anatomy of consciousness. It 
made all consist in passive sensations 
or impressions. These impressions came 
together, fused, dissociated under the 
guidance of certain laws, principally 
those of similarity and dissimilarity. 
The whole process was entirely passive 
without the intervention of any active 
subject. It was a psychology without 
a soul. 

Now that things are being examined 
a little more closely, psychologists find 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. 53 

that there are a lot of conscious states 
that are without the slightest doubt 
active on the part of the subject. There 
are a number of mental states upon 
which the subject brings his attention to 
bear, and attention from ad-tendere 
means activity. Ordinarily we do not 
know the intensity of a sensation with- 
out comparing it with another preced- 
ing one. This work of comparison, or as 
the English call it, discrimination, is 
necessarily activity. The Association- 
ists had confounded the fact of the co- 
existence with the perception of the 
similarity or dissimilarity. Supposing 
even that the coexistence of two mental 
states were entirely passive, it still 
remains true that the notion of their 
similarity or dissimilarity requires an 
act of perception. It is absolutely im- 
possible to conceive psychical life with- 



54 The Relation of 

out an active subject which perceives 
itself as living, notes the impressions it 
receives, compares its acts, associates 
and dissociates them ; in a word, there 
can be no psychology without a per- 
ceiving subject which psychologists 
call spirit, or with the English " mind." 
Dr. Pierre Janet, in a recent preface 
to the French translation of Dr. Hoeff- 
ding's " Outlines of Psychology," puts 
special stress on this leading idea of the 
Danish psychologist. He says : " Con- 
sciousness is essentially a striving 
towards unity, a synthetic force. . . . 
Activity is a fundamental property of 
conscious life, since we must always 
suppose a force which maintains the 
various elements and unifies them. This 
fundamental conception has played an 
important part in contemporaneous 
psychology, where it seems to have 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. 55 

firmly established itself. This is par- 
ticularly true of pathological psychol- 
ogy."* 

Moreover, mental acts manifest them- 
selves to consciousness with character- 
istic properties, and these acts so dis- 
tinguished are frequently repeated. At 
one time I have a headache ; at another 
I enjoy pleasant company ; again I pur- 
sue some difficult problem, and then 
I abandon myself to reminiscences. 
" There are here," says Ladd, "so 
many modes of activity of the same 
subject. What is there more natural 
than to call these modes of activity the 
6 capacities,' the i faculties,' or ' powers' 
of the subject ? Every-day language 
which embodies psychological truths 



* Esquisse d'une psychologie, par le Dr. Hoeffding. 
Ed. fra^aise par Leon Poitevin. Preface par M. le 
Dr. Pierre Janet. Pp. 4, 5. Paris ; Alcan ; 1900. 



LoFC. 



56 The Relation of 

shows ns the necessity of judging in 
this manner." * 

Is it not surprising to see the soul 
with its faculties, for which no amount 
of ridicule seemed too much, revived 
after a century of Associationism ? 
Aristotle and the scholastics certainly 
understood that the name of a faculty 
did not take the place of an explana^ 
tion, but they also knew that the 
present moment did not absorb all 
knowledge. Before I actually think, 
and after I have thought, there always 
remains a real capability to think. A 
stone does not only not think, but it has 
no power to think. It is true we know 
powers and faculties by the acts ; we 
know the chemical properties of bodies 
from the chemical reactions which are 

* Ladd, Outlines of Descriptive Psychology, p. 17. 
New York ; Scribner ; 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. 57 

observed ; but these powers and prop- 
erties belong to these things even be- 
fore they act. 

We are all acquainted with the 
quibble of Taine : * " Powers, faculties, 
or forces are nothing but possibilities." 
True, but what is the nature of these 
possibilities? Are they only logical 
potencies, i.e., non-impossibilities? If 
we affirm that a man has the power or 
potency of thinking, do we mean that 
we can conceive it as possible for a man 
to think in the same way in which we 
would speak of its being possible for a 
planet to be inhabited ? Evidently not. 
The permanent potency in man to 
think implies in him the existence of 
causes capable to produce thought. By 
affirming a potency in man to think we 

* Be V intelligence, p. 346. 



S8 The Belation of 

mean that there is in him a reality by 
virtue of which he may at any time 
think, if he should not think at the 
present moment. This reality, which is 
a sufficient reason not merely for an 
abstract possibility to think but for its 
real existence, is what we mean by 
faculty ox potency. 

Mental states not reducible one to an- 
other, subjected directly or indirectly 
to physical conditions, are produced in 
time, and realize in the organism effects 
which are subject to measurement. 
Mental states form a continuous stream 
of life of which the Ego knows itself as 
the subject and partially the cause. 
These are the general results of Experi- 
mental Psychology and the data of the 
fundamental problem of metaphysics. 






Experimental Psychology has by no 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. 59 

means done away with the problems of 
metaphysical psychology. They are 
just as clear and as imperative as ever. 
If we consult the best authorities 
amongst psychophysicists — Wundt, 
Ziehen, Ebbinghaus, Hoeffding, James, 
Ladd — there is not one of them but 
finds himself at the end of his work face 
to face with the eternal question, What 
is the nature of the conscious Ego ? 

We have seen that it is impossible, 
and psychologists are almost a unit on 
it, to identify psychic life with func- 
tions of nerve-centres. There are those 
who would take refuge behind some 
theory of parallel development of 
psychic and physical activity. They 
call it Parallelism. After all, placing 
motion and thought in parallel series 
only reiterates the problem to be solved. 
To assume that at the bottom of the 



60 The Relation of 

phenomena is a substance, one, ex- 
tended, thinking, after the idea of 
Spinoza, is merely to refer back to an 
unknown substratum the problem we 
are unable to solve. 

The learned initiator of Experimental 
Psychology sees only one possible so- 
lution, the " animism of Aristotle." 
"The results of my labors," says 
Wundt, "do not square with the ma- 
terialistic hypothesis, nor do they with 
the dualism of Plato or Des Cartes. It 
is only the animism of Aristotle which 
by joining psychology to biology that 
results as a plausible metaphysical con- 
clusion from Experimental Psychol- 
ogy."* 

Indeed if materialists be right and 
the soul be nothing but a dynamo of a 

* Grundzuege, Der phys. Psychologic, II., 4te Auf- 
lage, Cap. 23, S. 633. 



Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. 61 

physiological mechanism, as they would 
have us believe, then Experimental 
Psychology is not a distinct science, but 
a chapter of mechanics or physiology. 
If, on the other hand, the soul be such 
that its essence is to think, that it ex- 
ists for its own sake independently of 
the body, observable directly and ex- 
clusively by consciousness, then we can 
conceive of no psychological laboratory. 
Such laboratory would mean that we 
were going to experiment directly on 
the soul by subjecting it to apparatus 
of measurement, weight, force, etc. ; in 
other words, that the soul was ma- 
terial.* 

If, on the contrary, we hold with 
Aristotle and the mediaeval philosophers 
that man is one substance composed of 

*A. Thiery, Bevue Neo-Scholastique, avril, 1895, 
p. 182. 



62 Experimental Psychology and Philosophy. 

matter and an immaterial soul, that 
there is a relation of dependence be- 
tween the higher and the lower func- 
tions, that there is in man not a single 
higher operation without its physical 
correlative, not an idea without an 
image, not a volition without a sensi- 
ble emotion, then the concrete phe- 
nomenon offers to consciousness the 
character of a complexus at the same 
time psychological and physiological. 
In that theory, and in that alone, the 
existence of a science of psychophys- 
iology is entirely justified.* 

*Mercier, Les Origines de la psychologie contem* 
poraine, pp. 455-57. 



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